Been Awhile...

I know. I'm horrible at the blog thing. I have no excuse. But here we are, back again to try to fill everyone in on the exciting happenings at the Baker household.

When last we met, It was Saxon's first birthday, he was cute as could be. Daddy was in Afghanistan, and Mommy was frazzled.

Now, Saxon is a WHOPPING 18 months old (he's still as cute as can be), Daddy is back on American soil, and Mommy is still frazzled, but now frazzled and pregnant. Yikes!

To recap:

May 19, 2007 : Daddy's Home!!!!

May 31st, 2007: Saxon, Shawn and I surprised my Aunt Bev on her birthday in Phoenix, and Saxon got to go on his very first swim (with Daddy, in the indoor hotel pool, in his oompah-loompah swimming suit).

June 2007, We went to visit Grandma June and Auint Denise in Houston. Aunt Denise has 5 (hilarious) dogs, which apparently took a shine to Saxon....

June 2007: I finally realize that the upset stomach I've had for the last week is not in fact from traveling, and we will be adding a little one to the family in February of 2008 (no pictures yet!)

June 2007: We went to Indiana to visit Shawn's father and Grandparents, and had another chance for a "four generations" shot with the boys.... Sadly, just a couple of weeks after this picture was taken, Great-Grandpa Baker succumbed to congestive heart failiure. Shawn felt very blessed to have gotten a chance to see him one last time.

July 8, 2007: Saxon sinks his first putt, a whopping four inches from the cup, on Grandpa Phillips' putting green. He's a veritable Tiger Woods in the making.

August 2007: Mommy, in her newly pregnant state, has become addicted to Mint Newman-Os. (Basically organic oreos. But they are good for you see, because they're ORGANIC. So no calories, right? Right??) Daddy decided to make Newman-Os a family treat (so he wouldn't get blamed for eating the last one. Hence...

September 2007: We go to the opening day of Dixon's apple orchard with our friends Amber and Jake and thier children. I was told that this was a nice, family run farm, in a beautiful location, where you could buy apples and have a picnic in a nice relaxing atmosphere. We thought opening day might be a little crowded (like maybe we might not get a picnic table). We had no idea that we would have to park 3/4 of a mile away from the orchard and stand in line for 2 hours just to buy some apples! As Shawn said, "I've seen rock concerts that were less well-attended!" However, the apples really were great, and Saxon enjoyed playing in the orchard with his friends. (and I still have a half-bushel of apples left, if anyone wants some applesauce, or apple pie, or apple cake, or apple fritters....

The view from the apple orchard. Gorgeous? Absolutely. Worth the hour drive and 2 hour wait for apples? I'll let you decide.

September 19th, 2007. On one of our (many) ultrasounds, we find out: It's a boy!

October 2007: On another of our (very many) ultrasounds, we find out: It's a girl!

This time, they say they're sure. We'll see.

Balloon Fiesta picures to come, as soon as I upload them. (Yeah, right.)

Until then, keep smiling!!!!

More Birthday Pictures

For those of you who just can't get enough of the cuteness, here are more birthday pictures...

Note the presence of a forlorn puppy in the backyard. Julius did not have a good day.

Look Who's ONE!!!!!

So yeah, he's not exactly thrilled about the hat.

Saxon turned one on March 26th, but we had a little party for him the weekend before. My friend Courtney came in from Dallas for the weekend so she could be part of the festivities, and Jake and his family came also. It was low key, but Saxon seemed to enjoy all the attention. And he raked in the gifts. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so here you go. I know he looks less than thrilled, but trust me, he was having a good time.

The obligatory "baby eating cake" picture. Honestly, he wasn't a huge fan of all the sugar. I guess I should count my blessings and not try to force bad eating habits on my one year old.

More pictures to come as soon as blogger wil let me upload them.

Hello everyone! Saxon and I apologize for the relatively long absence from Blogworld. Things have been fairly busy in the high desert these days! I started working at the end of February, and though it has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us, things are working out quite well. I'm only half-time, so I still have lots of time to spend with my boy, which is wonderful. My parents have assumed Nanny duty while I'm at work, and though my mother seems to really enjoy it, she also seems quite exhausted when I walk through the door to pick him up!




Saxon is growing and growing, and is a handful to say the least. He walks at a blistering pace for an 11 month old, and if he falls down, can just pick himself right back up and keep going. Recently, he has discovered The Secret Entrance to the Outside World (i.e. the doggy door), and has on more than one occasion crawled out to the backyard. The dogs are not amused.



Another one of his favorite things is to grab onto the swivel chair on the office and run around in circles holding it. Then he lets go and gets dizzy. He gets a big kick out of it. Anyway, not much else to report on the Saxon Chronicles -- his first birthday is in a couple of weeks though, and I'm sure there will be many pictures involving him and a face full of cake and icing. Stay tuned....

The green-eyed monster...

No, it's not jealousy, it's our boy.

It would appear, at least at this juncture, that Grandma June's genes have won out, and Saxon is a green-eyed boy. I don't know how well you can tell from these pictures. Every time we look at him in different lighting, his eye color seems to change, from grey to green to light brown, but when I had some pictures printed at Walgreens to send to Shawn, they were green, green, green all the way. So at least for now, I'm calling it. Eye color can change as late as a year, but so far, Grandma June's the winner (he still looks a lot like his Daddy though)!

As for the monster part...

Oh sure, he looks all sweet and innocent there, but Saxon is now walking in earnest. He took his first couple of steps just after Christmas. By New Year's he was walking in short spurts of 6 or 8. Now there is no stopping him. Down the hall, up the stairs, everywhere you never thought he could get to. And just try -- just try to stop him from plunging headlong from the top of the stairs, and he will cry as though his heart is breaking from the ruthless oppression. Until you give him the Elmo guitar, or a golf ball. Then it's OK (as long as the golf ball's aTitleist).

Other than that, he's still the best little boy in the world.

Christmas Recap

First, I have to show a picture of Shawn and Mitchell and Nedra, at the end of our Christmas party for Shawn's work. This was on Dec 17th. I know, I'm slow. I'm showing this because (a) Shawn looks really cute in the Santa Hat, (b) the kids have the greatest smiles, and (c) I made the little ginger bread scene ALL BY MYSELF, and needed to record it for posterity. Now, on to Christmas Day...

This is a picture of Saxon during the opening of the presents. He looks a little nonplussed. I think Christmas is kind of wasted on a 9 month old, so much so that we gave up giving him any more presents after the first few, and parceled them out over the coming days. I think he was worried we were trying to butter him up and later we were going to pull out the Nasal Aspirator (his arch nemesis). Suffice it to say, he was cautiously interested with the toys. Once the presents were taken care of it was time for Christmas dinner. Saxon's uncle Robert and Aunt Mette flew in Christmas afternoon, and Jake, Amber, and the kiddos came for the meal as well. We had a wonderful time together and we were happy to have such great company! Here is a picture of Saxon sharing his activity center with his friend Clara...
After Christmas dinner, Saxon got to open the BIG BOX from his uncle Robert that we have had in our storage closet for a month. No One could even hazard a GUESS as to what it was -- and finally, TA DAA! His very first rocking horse, if you don't count Julius (Julius says he wishes not to be counted, as that was a very dark time in his life and he'd rather just pretend he was never made to be a noble steed). The horse whinnies and gallops and shakes his nose and tail and will be the source of much noisy enjoyment for quite some time, I'm sure.
So there you have it, a little mini Christmas recap. God Bless Us Everyone.

Yellow Ribbons

Well, It's the 6th of January, and Shawn left for a 6 month deployment to Afghanistan on Jan 4th. He is still in transit and probably will be for the next few days, but I got an email from him this morning and he's doing fine so far. I know he's going to miss Saxon terribly, but hopefully we can communicate with email and phone and even a few video conferences. Here are a few pics of Father and son at the airport. Its' early in the morning, so excuse the tired look on Saxon's face:

Oh, and then there's the issue of the black eye. Our little bundle of energy has recently started to walk, with predictably clumsy results. He hasn't made more than 6 steps in a row, but he did manage to walk over, reach for a book, and promptly fall and hit his eye on the bookshelf.

Next post I will fill you in on Christmas (and the promised antler/dog photo), and all the other haps in Saxon's little world. For now, say a prayer for Shawn, and let me know if you want updates -- I'm trying to compile an email list for people who are interested.

sleigh bells ring...

It's the beginning of the holiday season, and Saxon has been getting in the the spirit helping Mom and Dad put up the holiday decorations.

He has also been sampling said decorations with his two new bottom front teeth. Thank heavens we bought shatterproof ornaments.

Saxon is officially mobile, and has been crawling and cruising around, getting into trouble faster than you can say closed head injury. We tried putting corner protectors on all the coffee tables, but he just pulls them off and chews on them, so I suppose there really is no substitute for constant obsessive new mom vigiliance....

Coming up next post -- dogs with antlers!!! It's getting crazy over here!!